Gingrich and Romney run against their own party

Exit Mike Huckabee. Enter Newt Gingrich. Exit Donald Trump. It's been a busy week in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

But already two of the best-known candidates seem bent on ruling themselves out of contention.

One is Newt Gingrich. He's being denounced for his comments on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's Medicare plan by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill Bennett, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Charles Krauthammer on Fox News.

Ryan's Medicare plan was part of the budget resolution that all Republicans but four voted for in the House. It is for all practical purposes the platform of the Republican Party. And Gingrich seemed to trash it.

He did so in response to a tendentious question from "Meet the Press' " David Gregory, who asked whether Republicans "ought to buck the public opposition" and "really move forward to completely change Medicare"?

The smart response would have been to challenge the premises of Gregory's question. The Ryan plan is not necessarily unpopular; public sentiment depends heavily on how poll questions are worded. And the plan wouldn't completely change Medicare. The current system would remain in effect for everyone now 55 and over.

But Gingrich accepted Gregory's premises. "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering," Gingrich responded. "I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate."

So a former Republican speaker of the House who wants to become a Republican president has just given Democrats a warrant to label a major Republican proposal "right-wing social engineering" and "radical change from the right."

It's not hard to see why Russell Fuhrman, an Iowa Republican who happened to run into Gingrich in Dubuque, said, "You're an embarrassment to our party. Why don't you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself?"

From his own personal experience, Gingrich should have known what is happening here. The party's congressional wing, with its majority in the House, has taken the initiative in setting party policy -- as it did when Gingrich was speaker in 1995 and 1996.

Republican presidential contenders didn't disparage Gingrich's ideas in anything like the way Gingrich disparaged Paul Ryan's. Gingrich sees himself, accurately, as a generator of ideas. But the party he seeks to lead is already committed to ideas that are apparently contrary to his.

If Gingrich has put himself out of line with Republican policy more or less purposefully, Mitt Romney had no way of knowing that he would be aligned with President Obama when he formulated his Massachusetts health care plan back in 2006.

Congressional Republicans have almost unanimously supported repeal of the Obamacare bill jammed through Congress in March 2010 with a mandate, modeled on the one in Massachusetts, requiring everyone to buy health insurance. Twenty-seven state attorneys general or governors, almost all Republicans, are bringing lawsuits arguing that the Obamacare mandate violates the Constitution.

Romney delivered a health care speech last week in Michigan defending his Massachusetts plan and insisting that a state mandate is a different kind of duck from a federal mandate. But the response of the large mass of Republicans seems something like the old New Yorker cartoon in which the little girl confronted with a green vegetable says, "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it."

Some Romney fans are saying he has recovered by raising $10.25 million in a single day this week. It's an impressive fundraising feat.

But what is money for in a presidential nomination race? It can help build state organizations, it can introduce an unknown candidate to voters, and it can present arguments for a candidate or against his opponents.

Some of those things, however, can be done much more cheaply these days through new media. And it doesn't seem likely that even millions of dollars of ads can make Republican primary voters and caucus-goers love the Massachusetts mandate.

Romney is running as a technocrat, someone who can analyze data and get results through good management. But Republicans this year are looking not for a technocrat but for someone to reverse the Obama Democrats' vast increase in the size and scope of government.

I’m seeing that more now.

The pro Palin argument is so strong, and so simple.

It’s possible that it won’t happen that way, but what you’ve written seems like the most likely outcome.

It is likely that Ron Paul will not be dropping out. So that’s a factor. Also a factor, or a question mark, is any proven ability for the Palin Express Campaign Train to actually achieve anything in the real, boots on the ground political world. Her numbers at the CPACs weren’t very good, and I don’t think she’s had good numbers at any of those things. And that’s puzzled me. Yes, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney would make a special effort to get people there, but, if there really were so many huge Palin supporters all waiting to get started, they could’ve been motivated enough to get her some votes at any of these CPAC type events.
So, the Palin Express romping seems to me the logical outcome. But I’m also looking to see evidence that this is taking place. Because the millions of Palin supporters should be there, but I don’t know if I’m seeing the evidence of that.

I think it’ll go just like you say, logically.

You don’t understand.

States have Laws.

There would be no anarchy.

You’re arguing against some idea about Libertarianism you have, but not against Ron Paul, because he’s not about telling States what to do.

Ron Paul is Limited Constitutional Government, not Libertarian. They can agree on a lot of things, like being against Unconstitutional Federal Laws. But Libertarians want no state laws either on a lot of things, and Ron Paul doesn’t agree with Libertarians on that.

We ruled him out long ago. Global Warming w/ Pelosi ads. Dede Scozz NY. Lumped in with Huck and Mitt (but not as bad as Mitt?)

Gallup has 3 tiers of candidates, Palin, Gingrich, Romney is top, Paul and Bachmann are 2nd, everyone else is 3d.

So, Gingrich is moving solidly into Romneys RINO turf. Attempting to take the antiPalin spot, the RINO spot. We can rule Newt out, but don’t count him out, because he is famous enough to win, he makes a claim to being top republican.

CPAC used to be made up of conservatives, but no more. It was taken over by establishment Republicans. It’s straw polls are paid for by candidates paying for their supporters to attend. Gov. Palin won’t play those games. The most she will do is pass out some moose jerky.

Gov. Palin will never be supported by the Ruling Class Republicans. Her support is wide and unpretentious.

Ron Paul may hang in there a while but he agrees with many of Gov. Palin’s small government views and she has recently moved away from the Neo-Cons advising her on foreign policy and taken positions that Paul won’t necessarily agree with but will find less objectionable. Given that she endorsed Rand, Ron Paul may surprise us and wind up supporting her.
We’ll wait and see on that one.

I didn’t want to single CPAC out. She didn’t do much in any of those things. Not a huge point, and it’s a game, yes, but, just, I would’ve thought that there would be some evidence of support there, without Palin putting those bodies in the seats.

I did notice about the change in advisors. I do like the new foreign policy. I do prefer it to the old one.

Way back in the day, before she was the VP nom, she said something nice about Ron Paul, this was when he was being attacked by every other candidate. So, the idea that Ron Paul could support her is not far fetched.

I’d like to see Palin bring on the types of advisors that Ron Paul would bring in. She’s going to have to fill a whole administration if she wins. She knows where Ron Paul stands as regards Reagan - didn’t cut enough. If she wants to make big cuts in Fed Gov, Ron Paul is the guy to help her do that. I think he’d be a great VP, but that would not be the majority opinion here. I’d think she’d make her own foreign policy. She might listen to Ron, maybe not. And Ron would give her great ideas about where to cut, how to cut, etc. The RINOs in 2008 did not like anything about Ron Paul, but Palin does seem to like him.

He isn’t a Libertarian.

Yeah, he is.

Leaving certain issues to the States is the same as being for them. Drugs and abortion are two.

He voted for homos in the military.

He is also a Truther. This alone is enough to put him in the nuthouse.

I’m pretty confident that your belief that the Federal Government should ban everything you don’t personally like is not Limited Constitutional Government Conservativism.

You have no idea what the tea party is talking about, do you?

The Federal Government has LIMITED POWERS. The Federal Government cannot simply do whatever Eaker wants, to ban anything Eaker wants bannned.

Much of what the Fed Gov does should be left up to the States. That’s the standard Tea Party position.

Many of the votes that Ron Paul casts are votes for the Fed Gov not to do something that Ron Paul believes is not the proper role of the Fed Gov to do, perhaps because there’s no explicit authority in the Constitution for the Fed Gov to do something.

Many Conservatives, including most of the Tea Party Conservatives, believe that the Fed Gov is way way too big, and does way too much that it is not authorized to do by the Constitution. They want far fewer Federal Laws, far fewer Federal Bureaucrats, a far smaller Federal Government.

You just think that the difference between Liberals and Conservatives is what they want to ban, people can pick between 2 different ban sets. But Tea Party Conservatives understands that there are many things the Fed Gov just shouldn’t be doing.

I didn’t care to address your other comments, sorry. Probably wouldn’t have responded at all except that you couldn’t see the difference between being for something, and against the Federal Government banning something. Shocked, almost, that here on FR, someone could be so completely unfamiliar with Tea Party 101.

I’m pretty confident that your belief that the Federal Government should ban everything you don’t personally like is not Limited Constitutional Government Conservativism.

I stopped reading right here.

This is equivalent to you holding up a big sign announcing that you are a dildo.

Happy truthering nutjob.

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